psychology

The story you tell about them might not be their real story

Posted on by Juno Üjiié

We were standing in the lab, looking at three cadavers on dissection tables. As workshop participants, we were to choose a body to work on.

One was a slender woman with unnaturally perky breasts. Her nails were impeccably manicured, her hair full and glossy. She was beautiful.

Another was a heavily boned woman with a muscular build. “She must have been an avid hiker,” someone said.

The third was a woman of significant size.

She looked exactly like a good friend I had—someone who suffered from psychological and mental health issues and who had steadily gained weight until she was nearly immobile.

I felt a pang of sadness when I saw her body on the dissection table, and I experienced a slight aversion to standing at her station. No, I didn’t want to dissect her. I already knew it would be physically harder to remove her superficial fascia.

And yet, somehow, I ended up at her table.

As I began releasing her from the bounds of skin, I couldn’t help but project. I imagined the subcutaneous adipose tissue as emotional baggage she had accumulated over a lifetime, or maybe as a thick armor she wore to shield her psyche from the outside world. Under the tremendous weight, it felt like she had been collapsing inward.

The layer of superficial fascia we freed from her dermis was sizable—just as she had been with her skin on. We began removing the adipose tissue, as if freeing her from the tortured existence of living in a large body. It was hard work. The layer was easily three inches thick in her midsection.

As I worked, I thought about all the nerve endings embedded in that adipose tissue. She probably had ten times more nerve length than I do. This was a hypersentient state of being.

And then, beneath the adipose, her muscular structure appeared—and we were all astounded.

What had been hidden under that armor of fascia was not a collapsed, atrophied frame. She was robust. I had never seen an elderly female cadaver with such powerful muscles. Her legs were so strong she looked like she could’ve squeezed the life out of a big, bad cowboy. Her gracilis was not slender at all; it was substantial. None of us had ever seen gracilis muscles like that.

Her musculature had supported the weight of her adipose armor. She had the body of an Amazon warrior. There was no trace of wasting. She must have remained mobile and active until quite recently, carrying her physical existence bravely.

Internally, too, she was robust.

Her organs were intact. No calcified arteries, no arteriosclerosis. Her colon was six feet long, padded with a healthy amount of visceral fat. No fatty liver. No damaged kidneys. No fibrosis in the uterus. Her heart was beautiful. Her lungs were slightly darkened, but free of adhesions.

She was healthy.
Much healthier than I am.

The slender, model-like woman, on the other hand, had gone through hell. Once her skin and minimal adipose were removed, her body appeared almost transparent. Cancer had riddled her form—metastatic, likely starting from the breast. A chemotherapy port protruded from her chest.

She was a fighter, too.

I find myself reflecting on my projections.

You can’t tell who someone is just by looking from the outside.
The story you tell about them might not be their real story.

Home

Posted on by SomatiCat

When Michelle’s sister, Norma, was diagnosed with cancer, she called their mom to tell her the news. Norma is strong-willed—not the type to break down easily. Her mom just listened quietly, nodding along. Then, at the end of the conversation, she simply said,
“You may come home if you want.”

And that’s when Norma broke down, sobbing.

“Wow. That was the perfect response,” I said to Michelle. “Your mom is really good.”
She didn’t try to fix anything. She just held space for Norma, offered her a safe place, and gave her a choice.

This would never happen in my family.

From what I’ve heard over the years, Michelle’s family runs on love. We’ve been friends for decades, and in the beginning, we didn’t really understand each other’s “normal.”
But as we’ve continued to exchange stories about our families, the contrast has only become clearer—how we think, how we move through the world, how we relate to others, and ultimately, who we are.

For Michelle, every relationship begins with love.
For me, every relationship begins with a transaction.

What would my mother say if I were in Norma’s shoes?
She’d say, “Come home.”
But not because I’d be welcome if I wanted to come home. It would mean I should come home—whether I wanted to or not—so she could step into the role of the devoted caretaker. My mom was a nurse, after all. She would turn the story into hers. She always does.
She dictates the narrative of my life.

And I would say, “No.”
Because for me, “home” isn’t a safe place.
The only safe place I know is the one I’ve made for myself, where I live alone.
The only safe relationship I have is with my dog—whose love comes without conditions.

We all carry different meanings for the same words.
What “home” means depends on who you ask.
So does “love.”
So does “safe.”

Three Way Mirror Vanity

Posted on by SomatiCat

I had three mothers.

There’s a photo of them together, sitting in a living room. Every time I look at it, I think of the witches—not the ones from Hocus Pocus, but the ones from Macbeth. Together, they conjured me: a daughter with a fragmented identity.

When we are young, we come to understand ourselves through interaction with our parents. We need to feel loved and accepted—especially by our mothers. Our survival depends on them. They become the foundation of who we are.

In my early childhood, my parents, grandmother, and aunt all lived under the same roof. My real mother was a nurse and gone during the day. My grandmother took care of me. She was a woman of few words, rarely expressive. She fed me, probably changed my diapers, and otherwise left me to my own devices. I was a free-range kid. She was always busy—tending to our small rice paddies, vegetable garden, and housework.

I followed her around, watching her do everything by hand or with simple tools. I saw her harvest soybeans, shell them, sort them, boil and mash them, and finally turn them into homemade miso paste. Everything was made from scratch. That’s just how small farmers lived.

She also took me on her regular visits—to the neighborhood Shinto shrine, and to my grandfather’s grave. From her, I learned ritual manners. She was more superstitious than religious. To this day, I still visit that same shrine when I go home. It’s deeply rooted in me. As long as I physically survived and followed her instructions, I was allowed to exist.

Sometimes, when my mother worked night shifts, my grandmother “let her rest” by handing me off to my single, childless aunt. I often slept beside her. Only much later—nearly half a century on—I learned that my aunt had once had a child out of wedlock, a daughter she gave up for adoption.

To her, I was a baby doll. She adored me and constantly told me I was cute. Whatever I did, I was “cute” to her. Naturally, I loved her. Looking back, I see now that I was her emotional support animal. A doll she could pour her love into. I was a blank screen, an empty vessel for her to project her longing and affection onto. As long as I accepted her version of “love,” I had a place in her world.

My actual mother? She’s almost completely absent from my childhood memories—except when I was sick. As a nurse, she took care of my body when it broke down. But emotionally, there was no connection. With her, I felt like a utility animal—fed and maintained for function, not love.

Her “love” was always conditional. I was a “good enough” daughter only when I served some purpose for her. Most of the time, that purpose was to be strong-willed, fearless, and short-tempered—a stand-in, a surrogate warrior she used to push back against her verbally and psychologically abusive husband. I was her avatar, not her child.

As I grew up, I developed three distinct clusters of identity traits—not like someone with dissociative identity disorder, but more like someone sitting in front of a three-way mirror vanity, where each angled mirror is distorted and reflects a different version of her. And those warped reflections bounce back and forth endlessly, deepening the distortion.

It was deeply confusing, to say the least.

It took me decades—more than half a lifetime—to even begin to feel the original me. I spent so many hours trying to reconcile those mirrored fragments. Now, I no longer need the mirror.

As for my father—he hated that I was a girl. The only time he acknowledged me as his child was when I got good grades. Otherwise, I was worthless.

Mother

Posted on by SomatiCat

“After all, my choice was right,” my mother said, and I froze.

Since I was a little girl, she had made up her mind that I was destined to become a physician. She brainwashed me into believing it was my fate. Never mind that I loved reading and writing, hated math and science, and had terrible hand-eye coordination—she was convinced I was meant to be a doctor.

She had her reasons. My mother grew up poor and spent her early teenage years as a live-in nanny at her eldest brother’s house. He had been adopted out so he could get a better education and eventually became a physician. His wife was cruel and didn’t allow my mother to enroll in high school. But my mother, determined and stubborn, secretly applied to a nursing program and moved into a dormitory.

She became a nurse and later married—not to a doctor, but to an average city employee. So she shifted her dreams onto her children. She was going to be the proud mother of doctors. She believed this would elevate her status, allow her to join the elite “doctor’s family” club.

I never particularly wanted to become a physician, but I applied to a local medical school anyway. Thankfully, I wasn’t accepted. I could’ve tried again the next year, but by then, her focus had shifted to her new project: creating a physician son. She told me I was a bad influence on my younger brother and decided to “let me go.”

I had also applied to a liberal arts college in Tokyo, partly as an act of rebellion—and got in. She never asked what I wanted. She just decided I should go.

That was the “choice” she was referring to.

After college, I entered grad school and nearly earned a Ph.D. (Doctor!), but in my final year, I went to the U.S. to research my dissertation. There, I met an artist, fell in love, and got married. I stayed. Whatever plans she had for me, I repeatedly chose another path. At every fork in the road, she tried to map out my life, and I took the opposite turn.

She adapted. She became the mother of a daughter who lived in New York City. Her in-laws included a famous artist in Kyoto. She was no longer a poor country girl—she had graduated into the “cultured class.” She seemed to enjoy her new identity.

Meanwhile, my brother did become a surgeon, just as she’d dreamed. She didn’t need a physician daughter anymore.

Then I got divorced, and she lost that identity too. She wanted me to go back to my cheating husband.

For a time, she was the mother of a daughter who lived and worked in New York. She had no idea what I actually did for a living—a low-paid office secretary—but the title sounded impressive enough.

Since my father passed away about ten years ago, I’ve taken care of her, even from afar. I visit once or twice a year. I send gourmet meals every month. Compared to some of her friends, she realized she was lucky. She finally saw that it was possible because I didn’t have a demanding medical career or a family of my own to care for. And she said—without irony—that she was glad I was divorced.

And then, she said it again:
“After all, my choice was right.”

She took credit for all of my choices—every one I made against her wishes.

That’s my mother. I can’t recall a single time she ever asked me how I felt.

Father’s Day

Posted on by SomatiCat

Probably fortunately, I only ever had one father—so I assumed all fathers were like mine. I didn’t understand why Father’s Day was such a big deal.

He passed away long ago at the ripe age of 87. From the outside, he looked like a “good enough” father. He provided for us and supported my brother and me through much higher education than he ever had. And yet—I hated him. As far as I know, my younger brother felt the same.

He never hit us. But he was emotionally and verbally abusive, especially toward my mother and me. When I visited my parents, I stopped talking to him. My brother wouldn’t even set foot in the house. Later, when Alzheimer’s took hold, he was admitted to a nursing home. I didn’t love him, but as a “good enough” daughter, I visited him every day while I was in town. He didn’t recognize me. I sat beside him, spoke gently, massaged his shoulders. He wasn’t as nasty as before—maybe because he no longer knew I was his daughter. Still, from time to time, he shouted cruel things at the other residents. The staff would smile and say, “That’s the dementia talking, not him.”

But I turned to my mom and said, “That’s exactly how he always was.”

Since childhood, I’d been the main target of his emotional outbursts. In a nutshell, having a daughter was, to him, a waste. He made it clear he wished I hadn’t been born a girl. He told me I was too ugly to be loved by anyone. That became the foundation of my identity.

I grew up believing I wasn’t lovable as I was. That I would never be good enough for anyone. I didn’t trust men. I hated him.

Still, I did what I could out of duty. He died alone. I made it to his wake and funeral. No one cried.

I have a friend I’ve known for 30 years. Her worldview is completely different. She loves her parents deeply, and they love her. Her father lives in assisted living and is adored by the staff. He always told his three daughters they were cute and pretty, just as they were. Being his daughter was reason enough to be loved. Her older sister treats her own daughters and granddaughters the same way. My friend says love flows naturally in her family. She believes in love. She knows she is beautiful, and she knows she deserves love from men.

I once told her, “I don’t understand love.” She didn’t understand what I meant—until we shared our stories.

Not all fathers are the same. Not all families are the same. Not everyone’s idea of love is the same.

I can understand, at least partly, what made my father the way he was. I can feel compassion for him. But I still don’t love him. I never felt loved by him. That kind of feeling, I reserve only for my dogs.

So on Father’s Day, while many people celebrate, please remember:
Some of us can’t.

Multiverse Madness

Posted on by SomatiCat

You may have heard the famous Eastern philosophical parable about a man who dreams he is a butterfly, only to awaken and wonder: is he a man who dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming he is a man?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness reminded me of that parable. In the film, dreams are portrayed as stories unfolding in alternate universes. Interestingly, the only person who can travel through the multiverse is the one who has never dreamed.

Have you ever had the same dream over and over? Not exactly the same, but different variations on a single theme? I used to have dreams like that.

One of the recurring dreams I had after a messy divorce was about my ex-husband. In those dreams, he had remarried and had a daughter and a son. They were some of my worst nightmares. He had cheated on me while I was undergoing infertility treatment, and by the time we divorced, I was too old to conceive. I had lost my chance to become a mother.

I dreamed this scenario again and again. The emotional anguish felt so real, it lingered even after I woke up. His betrayal stained the landscape of my inner world with grief and suffering. In waking life, I felt mostly anger—but underneath it, I carried a deep well of loss and sorrow.

In these dreams, I always lived in some kind of apartment. Each one felt strangely familiar. Sometimes I would find myself in the exact same apartment I had dreamed of before—with the same landscaping outside, the same scent in the air, the same humidity in the walls. I knew that place.

It’s been twenty-five years since the divorce, and I’ve finally stopped having that dream. Still, it feels as if I once lived in that apartment—in this life.

Then I began to wonder: maybe that was my life in an alternate universe. It’s about the inner choices we make—who we decide to become. Every decision spins off another timeline, another universe where a different version of you lives out the consequences of that choice.

If I had clung to the anger and suffering, maybe that nightmare would have been my reality.

These days, I rarely dream. Maybe my life has finally settled into this reality.

P.S. My ex-husband did remarry, but he never had kids. As for me, I’ve made peace with the fact that motherhood and I were probably never meant to be. Crisis averted—for the children.

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

Posted on by SomatiCat

I got a call from my 92-year-old mother. She had just been informed by the nursing home that my 100-year-old aunt passed away in her sleep—her heart had stopped.

I had visited her just a month ago and sat with her, talking. She had stopped responding a long time ago, but her heart kept beating with the help of a pacemaker. She swallowed whatever mushy food her caregiver spooned into her mouth and wore diapers.

This is not how I want to spend the last years of my life.

I loved her when I was a child. She lived next door to my parents, and she spoiled me with sweets, cute dresses, dolls, and stuffed animals—whatever I wanted, she bought for me. Every day, I waited eagerly for her to come home and ran to give her a hug. Sometimes, her breath smelled of alcohol.

My father was emotionally abusive, and my mother was emotionally unavailable. In many ways, it was my single, childless, career-oriented aunt who “adopted” me. She even wanted to adopt me legally at one point, but my parents—outraged—refused. There was no reason for them to give me up; we weren’t poor. I suppose it was her desire to have a daughter of her own.

I used to say I wanted to be just like her. She was my role model: fashionable, independent, capable of doing anything perfectly. She was the first woman in the region to be promoted to regional manager at the national telephone company. She was also incredibly skilled with her hands—especially knitting and crocheting. I had so many beautiful sweaters she made, and people often complimented them.

I, on the other hand, am not crafty at all. I tried, but I could never do anything as well as she could. I’d get frustrated, give up, and she would finish my projects for me. I still sometimes try, but I almost always give up.

She kept her home neat and beautiful, always with fresh flowers from her garden. She adorned the house with lovely things. Though she didn’t cook elaborate meals, she arranged simple dishes with such care that they looked more appealing than my mother’s “here’s your food, eat” style.

I admired her and, as a little girl, I dreamed of being like her—working, unmarried, and childless. That was an unusual dream at the time, when most girls wanted to be brides in white gowns. My parents didn’t respond to my dream at all. They just ignored it.

Life didn’t turn out quite the way I envisioned. I moved to the U.S., got married, worked as an ordinary office assistant, got divorced, lost my job, became an independent contractor, and remained childless. Still, I returned to Japan once a year to visit my parents and my aunt.

Even as a child, I sensed something was off in my family. There was a ghost in the closet—a family secret. Children can feel these things. Even if it’s never spoken, it changes the air.

The closet opened after my father—my aunt’s younger brother—passed away at age 87. My mother began to talk.

It was the scandal everyone in the small town knew. My aunt had an affair with her married boss and got pregnant. At the time, having a child out of wedlock was a deep shame for a respectable family. But she refused to have an abortion. Her lover’s wife was infertile, and my aunt may have believed that having a child would lead him to divorce and marry her.

Instead, he and his wife adopted the baby girl. He secretly allowed my aunt to visit the child, pretending she was just a family friend. But my aunt, lacking boundaries, acted like a mother. As the child grew older and started asking questions, the visits ended. The wife eventually died, but the man never remarried. The girl grew up not knowing she was adopted until her teenage years.

Then I was born into the family. At the time, my parents lived with my grandmother and my aunt. In a sense, my grandmother gave me to my aunt as a substitute. I don’t remember my mother’s touch. I was always with my aunt. Four years later, my brother was born, and this time my mother clung tightly to him. He was always wrapped around her like a baby monkey.

Once the secret came out, the meaning of so many things shifted. When I used to say I wanted to be like my aunt, I meant I wanted to be an independent woman. But my parents may have heard something else—that I admired her for having an affair and bearing a child out of wedlock, bringing shame to the family. My father resented having a daughter—specifically me being a daughter. From him, I absorbed the belief that all men were predators, and I had to fend them off with claws and fangs.

My aunt loved me like a daughter until she lost her mind. Even in my fifties, she’d try to brush my hair and spoon-feed me. She never truly saw me for who I was—only the daughter she lost. I was her living doll.

After my father died, my aunt’s physical and mental health declined. No one in the family wanted to take care of her, and I was the only one who didn’t hate her. So, by default, I became the one responsible.

She lived in her own home for nearly ten years, with various caregivers as her condition worsened. Eventually, she needed 24-hour care.

That’s when her true nature came out. She was highly narcissistic and very demanding. She wanted everyone around her to serve her in exactly the way she expected. She went through so many caregivers. She never forgot who had crossed her.

“Everyone who spoke ill of me died of cancer,” she once said, as if she’d cursed them.

Yes, she cursed me with her projection. She cast me in a role she needed someone to play—and I played it well. I understand she had a hard life, and she endured it the only way she knew how: by casting her pain outward, cursing everyone around her.

After the phone call, I said to myself, “Ding dong, the witch is dead.”

At least I’ve chosen not to curse anyone. That is my freedom.

Do I want to see tomorrow?

Posted on by SomatiCat

I lost my anchor.

My dog was my tether to reality, to this life. He was undeniably real. He lived entirely in the moment. When I woke in the middle of the night, lost in the vast nothingness—confusion and darkness pressing in—I would reach out and place my hand on him. He was warm, solid, breathing. Alive. And in his version of reality, if he was alive, then so was I. I felt safe in the world he held for me. It was as if I were drifting in a night ocean of existential anxiety, and he was my life raft.

With his passing, I lost my favorite version of reality.

I don’t have to protect anyone. I don’t have to take care of anyone. I don’t have anyone to come home to. I don’t have to worry about losing him anymore.

What remains is my own version of reality.

Every morning, I wake up and start my routine. I make coffee, brush my teeth, check emails. I function well. I smile. I chat with neighbors. I act normal. But I am not here. I’m floating an inch above the ground, like a plastic bag caught in the wind, weightless and directionless.

Once in a while, I do feel real. On a recent trip, I went to a shooting range and practiced pistol shooting for the first time. In that moment, I was completely focused. The weight of the gun in my hands, the shock waves reverberating through my body, the hot shells grazing my skin—burning, tangible—I felt alive. For that brief moment, the act of shooting was my anchor. (Don’t worry, I won’t shoot any living being, including myself.)

Then I came home, and my fragmented reality returned.

Fortunately, I can hold it together. I don’t have the affliction my cousin does—the one that warps reality beyond repair. I can pretend. I can fit in. I just don’t feel alive.

So I go to the gym. I work out on one of those torture machines. The intense contraction in my quads pulls me back into my body, back into the present.

Do I want to see tomorrow?

I don’t know.

But I want to be here now. In my body.

Is it how normal people are feeling?

Posted on by SomatiCat

I sent my beloved dog across the rainbow bridge one month ago, and I’ve been depressed ever since. I still cry and feel his absence deeply. The sharp pain and heaviness in my chest have lessened, but they’re still there.

I go out every day—talking to neighbors, having lunch with friends, attending events I’m invited to, and spending hours at the gym. I’ve been working out daily.

Without the need to walk my 80+ pound dog three times a day, I suddenly have more uninterrupted time. I’ve been channeling that into my writing project, which is progressing well.

I also have two trips planned, something that would’ve been impossible when I was caring for a 13-year-old large dog. I’m doing everything I can to avoid spending days in bed, mindlessly watching Netflix all day and night. I’ve been there before. I know how it happens, and I know how to prevent it.

At the same time, multiple changes have happened in my life—not particularly happy ones.

From the outside, I probably look fine. I’m functioning well. But I’m not okay. I don’t feel alive.

Even when I laugh, enjoy conversations with friends, or run on a treadmill for an hour, I feel… hollow. Like a cow, grazing mindlessly on grass, waiting to be slaughtered, unaware of its fate.

And I ask myself: Am I depressed? Or is this just how most people feel, going through the motions of everyday life?

On Facebook, everyone presents their happy, vibrant lives. But are they really alive, or do they just think they are?

As the old Chinese parable says: Am I a monk dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being a monk?

Touch: Your Brain’s Interpretation

Posted on by SomatiCat

Even though the sensory receptors in the skin are mechanoreceptors, it is your brain that interprets the signals they send. Since the brain remembers past experiences and the emotions associated with them, touch is never merely a  touch. Even the same mechanical touch can be felt differently—it can be loving, caring, comforting, or healing; sensual or sexual; cold, abusive or invasive. Even when you think your touch is neutral, it’s up to the receiver’s brain to interpret it.

When I was in my late thirties, I went through infertility treatment. To check if my fallopian tubes were open, I underwent a very uncomfortable test. The pressure I felt inside my body was so invasive that I instinctively contracted my entire body, bracing myself. Then the technician’s assistant gently placed her hand on my arm. I melted. Her touch was neutral, and I don’t think she was consciously trying to comfort me. I felt it came from her spontaneous empathy. 

I have Meniere’s disease. One day, I had a Meniere’s attack in a gross anatomy lab and had to lie on a cold linoleum floor for some time, clutching a barf bag. I told everybody that nothing could be done to relieve my suffering and asked them to keep me safe and leave me alone until the symptoms resolved. I threw up in the bag and was hyperventilating in a fetal position. Some people can’t tolerate witnessing suffering without doing anything; it might make them feel powerless. A few of them placed their hands on me, perhaps to soothe or heal. I just had to endure the unwanted touch. They were mechanically the same kind of touch, but my brain interpreted them differently. One was comforting and the other was annoying.

As a child, I experienced improper touches, which were a violation of boundaries. This experience made me sensitive to the intent behind a touch. I don’t remember receiving loving touches from adults in my family during my childhood. My nervous system used to react to every touch as if it were a danger. Sometimes, a touch triggered tremendous rage, while other times, it made me feel nauseous. It took me a long time to learn to discern a safe touch from an unwanted one. I’ve learned to set boundaries and to choose how to respond, not just to react. 

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